He's saying Nintendo should do what Sony did. Strip out a bunch of features, and make it incompatible with existing games, while giving it a big hardware boost.
So... I totally agree that Nintendo has the right idea! Nintendo shouldn't put out anything next-gen until they get downloadable games and a patchable/upgradeable OS sorted out.
Rather than costing 10x as much for 2-4x the performance, it costs 2.5x as much for 2-4x the performance. Plus it's enterprise-grade, so it has a leet wear-levelling algorithm. TRIM? Doesn't need it; the controller handles all that stuff, and is OS agnostic.
After factoring that in, what you should be saying is... why bother with an Intel drive when the ioDrive is so much better value?
I figured the text could mention the ability to try it before installing, the ability to dual boot, the included memory tester (something that would avoid one of the problems with Win7 installs), the speed boost seen on some machines due to it being leaning and not having the overhead of antivirus software, the great free apps included, the easy of finding adding/removing apps, freedom from registration keys and ads, freedom to copy.... great additional effects/features with a modern GPU... should include something about minimum RAM requirements. Maybe mention that Mac switchers could keep the old PC around to run Windows games, and be safely used for net access through Ubuntu.
Don't lie - describe!
"Security Software included" "Thousands of easy to install, legally free apps available"
It is, however, a monumental undertaking, since processes would have to be shifted between architectures while running. Unless, of course, you just design some programs to run on the massively parallel slower CPU, with no option of running on the faster one. Then there's no shifting, but you negate a lot of your benefit. And you could just as easily bundle two x86 CPUs on a board to get approximately the same effect, but with much less effort.
And many far-right free-market wackos seem more interested in preventing all government regulation of industry, even if that regulation would stop corporations from destroying the environment for short term profits.
I suggest meeting somewhere in the middle. I have two cats.:)
I went for a Jetway board - Fanless VIA C7 Eden 1.2ghz. The whole system pulls about 45 watts from the wall, according to my Kill-A-Watt. When I bought it, it was the same price as Atom boards.
I have Ubuntu installed on it, with Samba set up as a server. I'm using a PCI 4-port SATA card to drive 6 Seagate HDDs. (2x PATA 4x SATA) - Next time I'll go WD, but for now this is what I've got. It's plugged into a 100mbit switch atm, because I'm busy moving stuff around. It has between 25-30% CPU utilization when I'm accessing shares, pumping through 9.4MB/sec. (roughly the max of 100mbit)
I have it configured for VNC, which it handles adequately. It's slow, but bearable, and unlike your EPIA 5000 it's i686.
The highest speeds I've seen for PATA are 18MB/sec. For copying from SATA HDD to SATA HDD, I saw speeds of 35-45MB/sec depending on filesize and quantity. Even with Gigabit, I wouldn't have expectations above 25-30MB/sec through Samba.
Oh, and my board has a lame memory controller that only detects 512MB out of my 1GB stick.
Yep. I highly recommend picking up a Kill-A-Watt and measuring your electronics.
My NAS is an old VIA C7 board. It consumes about 45 watts.
This is with... 4x SATA HDD + 2xPATA HDD
It's a cruddy Jetway board - the onboard SATA doesn't seem to be supported properly. If I had to do it again, with newer parts, I'd probably go Atom or Ion.
This is totally correct. Installing stuff on my XP computer off the HDD takes an average of 4-12 seconds. Even most games don't take very long - once downloaded, 20-30 seconds to complete installation?
The first few compiles I did for linux software were fun, but I can't argue against the time issue.:P
But if the website came up and looked identical, but said the server had crashed, and the keys were lost - then provided new keys and the command to install them...
It's easy to get around security if the user isn't educated.
There are smaller devices available, which might be nice for lugging around - but keep in mind that the screen and Wifi are still big power draws, so the bigger the batteries the better.
But it's worth noting that according to previous articles, Intel "envisioned" Atoms one day making it into high end phones. This latest move from Arm will prevent that, solidifying their lead.
Wow, I don't know how I missed writing two 2's into that post.:O
1) Some vendors have a lot better track records. The real question is when have I had a drive fail within two years?
Well, Seagate 7200.10's were particularly bad. I had two of those start chirping loudly, and RMA'd before the trouble started. But now that I'm mostly WD it seems okay. All my WD drives(~6) have been doing fine for 0-9 years. I even have an old Raptor still going strong, and matching modern drives for performance. (But not capacity or noise)
The thing is... I've had SD cards fail silently. I'm not so trusting of NAND until it proves itself, and all the reviews are good. I guess you could say, I'm waiting for third gen tech.
2a) True, true.:P
2b) Oh, usage will easily rise to 60+ GB for a light user. I mean, we're starting to see games between 10-25GB, and the OS is taking up more and more room, so 60-120GB for a light user is plausible.
But I see your point about capacity.
3) If you run Linux... go software RAID on multiple drives. If you run Windows... run a backup script at night - or go RAID-1 and make sure it works properly.
I've been grateful for backups a couple times now.
Your point about the value of upgrading is true - but I'm sure Microsoft will do something about it. After all, they helped AMD and Intel with that challenge.;)
First, don't confuse NAND used in SD cards and stuff with the same NAND used in SSDs. They're quite different qualities.
I've had SD cards drop 1/8th their capacity after days of heavy use. SSDs, however, have higher quality NAND and wear-levelling controllers. For Linux, they have better filesystems, too.
Second, up until the newest generation, most SSDs were susceptible to debilitating speed loss after some usage. To be safe, you had to half the benchmarked results. With TRIM and smarter controllers, this is mostly solved, but very heavy usage for extended periods will still result in speed loss. Remember, on an HDD deleting is basically a free operation, but on an SSD it has to physically erase. This would be most noticeable for say... a security camera box recording a dozen or more streams 24/7.
At that point, the tables will turn, HD manufacturing will be relegated to power users, and hard drive prices will skyrocket. I'd give them five years. At most. Their statement reads like a press release by a company that sees the writing on the wall and is trying to keep stock prices propped up as long as they can. Just saying.
You're forgetting about some important factors.
1) HDDs don't have excessive wear and tear from use. We don't know how long high end SSDs will last - but HDDs can go years of heavy read/write use. 2) As prices of SSDs drop, companies will flock to the new market, shovelling out short lived crap. (Same thing happened to HDDs) 2) HDDs will have superior capacity for a very long time. It will be hard to match that for the "best value" drives priced at around $100, or even the cheapest ones priced at ~$50. 3) HDDs can ramp up the cache to have very awesome performance.
There was an asian company that created a 3.5" hybrid HDD. It was a 2.5" 5400RPM drive with 1GB of DDR cache, and onboard power backup. That was a few years ago - it had a sustained write of around 145MB/sec, maxing out SATA1.
Now picture a modern 3.5" drive with dual or quad heads from WD. Add in 4GB of cache, and make it 10000 RPM. Stick it in a DVD drive bay and include battery backup. The cost would literally be hundreds of dollars, but you'd have something like 8TB of space capable of almost maxing out SATA3. (500MB/sec for short bursts under 3 minutes long isn't unrealistic)
HDD manufacturers aren't backed into a corner yet...
The idea that a Linux user would download random stuff from a torrent or website is a pretty foreign concept. For me, and moth others, if it isn't in the repository, I don't bother - because there is probably something in the repository that suits my needs just as well or better anyway.
Correct - as an educated computer user.
Although there are two scenarios you're forgetting. One is repository/domain hijacking, and the other is something not being available except from an unknown website.
Ex 1: PlayOnLinux (simplifies working with Wine and installing some software - not in the repositories) Ex 2: BackInTime (Gnome) - website disappeared a few weeks back. Domain name available for purchase.
Anyway, as an educated Windows user, I would check review sites like cnet or betanews(or a download site like filehippo) to see if software is legit or if it's going to pwn me. Then I'd download it - possibly from those central not-really-a-repository locations.
I hope I've drawn the parallel that user education matters a bit more than the specific type of central download location.;)
Slashdot Mirror
He's saying Nintendo should do what Sony did. Strip out a bunch of features, and make it incompatible with existing games, while giving it a big hardware boost.
So... I totally agree that Nintendo has the right idea! Nintendo shouldn't put out anything next-gen until they get downloadable games and a patchable/upgradeable OS sorted out.
Lost mods, but had to point this out.
$895 is less than $3500.
Rather than costing 10x as much for 2-4x the performance, it costs 2.5x as much for 2-4x the performance. Plus it's enterprise-grade, so it has a leet wear-levelling algorithm. TRIM? Doesn't need it; the controller handles all that stuff, and is OS agnostic.
After factoring that in, what you should be saying is... why bother with an Intel drive when the ioDrive is so much better value?
But I laugh at all of you. I got 1.5TB for $80. :P
Don't use CFLs in fixtures you turn off and on a lot.
My father insists this claim is bullcrap. Luckily I don't have to listen to him anymore. I think he's on #8 in just 2 years. ;)
Manufacturer, Model, and Controller(if you know it) please!
Did you try out any Mtron drives?
Also, to whoever modded me troll a few days back for saying "HDDs are currently more reliable than SSDs" - LOLOL!
I figured the text could mention the ability to try it before installing, the ability to dual boot, the included memory tester (something that would avoid one of the problems with Win7 installs), the speed boost seen on some machines due to it being leaning and not having the overhead of antivirus software, the great free apps included, the easy of finding adding/removing apps, freedom from registration keys and ads, freedom to copy.... great additional effects/features with a modern GPU... should include something about minimum RAM requirements. Maybe mention that Mac switchers could keep the old PC around to run Windows games, and be safely used for net access through Ubuntu.
Don't lie - describe!
"Security Software included"
"Thousands of easy to install, legally free apps available"
Neither does, but it could be added to Linux.
It is, however, a monumental undertaking, since processes would have to be shifted between architectures while running. Unless, of course, you just design some programs to run on the massively parallel slower CPU, with no option of running on the faster one. Then there's no shifting, but you negate a lot of your benefit. And you could just as easily bundle two x86 CPUs on a board to get approximately the same effect, but with much less effort.
Tip: Don't sign your name when posting anonymously. :P
And many far-right free-market wackos seem more interested in preventing all government regulation of industry, even if that regulation would stop corporations from destroying the environment for short term profits.
I suggest meeting somewhere in the middle. I have two cats. :)
I went for a Jetway board - Fanless VIA C7 Eden 1.2ghz. The whole system pulls about 45 watts from the wall, according to my Kill-A-Watt. When I bought it, it was the same price as Atom boards.
I have Ubuntu installed on it, with Samba set up as a server. I'm using a PCI 4-port SATA card to drive 6 Seagate HDDs. (2x PATA 4x SATA) - Next time I'll go WD, but for now this is what I've got. It's plugged into a 100mbit switch atm, because I'm busy moving stuff around. It has between 25-30% CPU utilization when I'm accessing shares, pumping through 9.4MB/sec. (roughly the max of 100mbit)
I have it configured for VNC, which it handles adequately. It's slow, but bearable, and unlike your EPIA 5000 it's i686.
The highest speeds I've seen for PATA are 18MB/sec. For copying from SATA HDD to SATA HDD, I saw speeds of 35-45MB/sec depending on filesize and quantity. Even with Gigabit, I wouldn't have expectations above 25-30MB/sec through Samba.
Oh, and my board has a lame memory controller that only detects 512MB out of my 1GB stick.
Yep. I highly recommend picking up a Kill-A-Watt and measuring your electronics.
My NAS is an old VIA C7 board. It consumes about 45 watts.
This is with... 4x SATA HDD + 2xPATA HDD
It's a cruddy Jetway board - the onboard SATA doesn't seem to be supported properly. If I had to do it again, with newer parts, I'd probably go Atom or Ion.
I'm amazed too!
4096 x 2048
That's over four times the resolution of 480p!
Unless they meant four times the megapixels.
Plus, our broadband infrastructure isn't really equipped to download GBs of data as the primary way of purchasing games.
My ISP is. 200GB/mo for $30!
I've started buying everything online.
This is totally correct. Installing stuff on my XP computer off the HDD takes an average of 4-12 seconds. Even most games don't take very long - once downloaded, 20-30 seconds to complete installation?
The first few compiles I did for linux software were fun, but I can't argue against the time issue. :P
@Requiem18th: Parent isn't flamebait.
But ARM has those spiffy DSPs. More and more codecs are going GPU or DSP powered, so who cares about CPU optimizations for such multimedia tasks?
By the time an Atom has as low power consumption as an Arm processor, Arm processors will be faster. :/
Indeed.
But if the website came up and looked identical, but said the server had crashed, and the keys were lost - then provided new keys and the command to install them...
It's easy to get around security if the user isn't educated.
http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/
http://promos.asus.com/US/1000HE/ASUS/index.html
Two netbooks with long battery lives.
There are smaller devices available, which might be nice for lugging around - but keep in mind that the screen and Wifi are still big power draws, so the bigger the batteries the better.
The "hybrid HDD" I described isn't a "Hybrid HDD (Flash)". It has a special controller that uses DDR as cache.
You are correct about the options available to them.
Late? They said 2010 in the article you linked.
In this article, they said Cortex A5 in 2011.
I agree - the summary is bad.
But it's worth noting that according to previous articles, Intel "envisioned" Atoms one day making it into high end phones. This latest move from Arm will prevent that, solidifying their lead.
Wow, I don't know how I missed writing two 2's into that post. :O
1) Some vendors have a lot better track records. The real question is when have I had a drive fail within two years?
Well, Seagate 7200.10's were particularly bad. I had two of those start chirping loudly, and RMA'd before the trouble started. But now that I'm mostly WD it seems okay. All my WD drives(~6) have been doing fine for 0-9 years. I even have an old Raptor still going strong, and matching modern drives for performance. (But not capacity or noise)
The thing is... I've had SD cards fail silently. I'm not so trusting of NAND until it proves itself, and all the reviews are good. I guess you could say, I'm waiting for third gen tech.
2a) True, true. :P
2b) Oh, usage will easily rise to 60+ GB for a light user. I mean, we're starting to see games between 10-25GB, and the OS is taking up more and more room, so 60-120GB for a light user is plausible.
But I see your point about capacity.
3) If you run Linux... go software RAID on multiple drives. If you run Windows... run a backup script at night - or go RAID-1 and make sure it works properly.
I've been grateful for backups a couple times now.
Your point about the value of upgrading is true - but I'm sure Microsoft will do something about it. After all, they helped AMD and Intel with that challenge. ;)
You're correct, but I have two nitpicks.
First, don't confuse NAND used in SD cards and stuff with the same NAND used in SSDs. They're quite different qualities.
I've had SD cards drop 1/8th their capacity after days of heavy use. SSDs, however, have higher quality NAND and wear-levelling controllers. For Linux, they have better filesystems, too.
Second, up until the newest generation, most SSDs were susceptible to debilitating speed loss after some usage. To be safe, you had to half the benchmarked results. With TRIM and smarter controllers, this is mostly solved, but very heavy usage for extended periods will still result in speed loss. Remember, on an HDD deleting is basically a free operation, but on an SSD it has to physically erase. This would be most noticeable for say... a security camera box recording a dozen or more streams 24/7.
At that point, the tables will turn, HD manufacturing will be relegated to power users, and hard drive prices will skyrocket. I'd give them five years. At most.
Their statement reads like a press release by a company that sees the writing on the wall and is trying to keep stock prices propped up as long as they can. Just saying.
You're forgetting about some important factors.
1) HDDs don't have excessive wear and tear from use. We don't know how long high end SSDs will last - but HDDs can go years of heavy read/write use.
2) As prices of SSDs drop, companies will flock to the new market, shovelling out short lived crap. (Same thing happened to HDDs)
2) HDDs will have superior capacity for a very long time. It will be hard to match that for the "best value" drives priced at around $100, or even the cheapest ones priced at ~$50.
3) HDDs can ramp up the cache to have very awesome performance.
There was an asian company that created a 3.5" hybrid HDD. It was a 2.5" 5400RPM drive with 1GB of DDR cache, and onboard power backup. That was a few years ago - it had a sustained write of around 145MB/sec, maxing out SATA1.
Now picture a modern 3.5" drive with dual or quad heads from WD. Add in 4GB of cache, and make it 10000 RPM. Stick it in a DVD drive bay and include battery backup. The cost would literally be hundreds of dollars, but you'd have something like 8TB of space capable of almost maxing out SATA3. (500MB/sec for short bursts under 3 minutes long isn't unrealistic)
HDD manufacturers aren't backed into a corner yet...
The idea that a Linux user would download random stuff from a torrent or website is a pretty foreign concept. For me, and moth others, if it isn't in the repository, I don't bother - because there is probably something in the repository that suits my needs just as well or better anyway.
Correct - as an educated computer user.
Although there are two scenarios you're forgetting. One is repository/domain hijacking, and the other is something not being available except from an unknown website.
Ex 1: PlayOnLinux (simplifies working with Wine and installing some software - not in the repositories)
Ex 2: BackInTime (Gnome) - website disappeared a few weeks back. Domain name available for purchase.
Anyway, as an educated Windows user, I would check review sites like cnet or betanews(or a download site like filehippo) to see if software is legit or if it's going to pwn me. Then I'd download it - possibly from those central not-really-a-repository locations.
I hope I've drawn the parallel that user education matters a bit more than the specific type of central download location. ;)
You are absolutely correct.
Weatherbug, anyone? ;)